BTC Async Art

Right Place & Right Time

Bitcoin Hourly Price Offset

ABOUT THE ART

Each day, a new artistic composition is generated autonomously using a data feed of Bitcoin’s last 24 hours of price action. Each hour’s price controls rotation, scale, and position of a correlating layer. Astute viewers will surmise the previous day’s price volatility simply by examining the artwork. High volatility generates more interesting compositions, while low volatility returns artwork closer to the original.

While daily image generation is the result of autonomous API calls, utilizing an algorithm the artist wrote, the artist has chosen to retain an ‘Artist Intent’ token. This is in order for him to treat the piece as a work-in-progress. The default style is how the artist currently intends for the piece to be viewed. It changes on the artist’s whim, responding to the latest Bitcoin related news.

THINKING DIFFERENT

While most artworks tokenized on Async Art rely on the platform’s renderer, Kane had a different vision. The renderer native to the Async Art platform relies on values recorded to the ethereum blockchain. Therefore, gas payments are required in order to render. The control token has a record setting 102 values to be transacted. Therefore, gas transactions can be rather steep. Kane decided to remove his dependance on gas.

“Part of this being an autonomous artwork is not relying solely on blockchain data. The controller token’s values recorded to the blockchain are based solely on my algorithm and price action. By coding my own front-end renderer and utilizing the exact same algorithm and price feed, I’ve eliminated dependence on recording these values to the ethereum blockchain. My artist intent token, where I determine style– that’s still vitally recorded to the ethereum blockchain. Plus, the collector gets access to an interactive calendar where they can view any day from the history of Bitcoin! Why wouldn’t I build my own renderer? That’s the beauty of artist intent in this digital medium!”

Within the emerging NFT art market, this piece is truly a first, breaking ground on autonomous art, with a dynamicly responsive renderer, framed on an indepenent website. All lovingly programmed by the artist, himself. Considered a work-in-progress, there’s no telling how this piece could evolve.

THE COLLECTOR

This website interacts with digital wallets to authenticate a user by possession of an NFT. Once authenticated, the collector has access to view an artwork with price data from any day in Bitcoin’s history. Additionally, they gain access to all previous ‘artist intent’ styles that the artist has transacted to the Ethereum blockchain. Through the innovative presentation of exclusive experiences via NFT, Matt Kane hopes to encourage this use-case for establishing greater value for digital art.

Matt is waiting until he finds the right collector who understands and values the historic nature of this piece. “My artistic vision of continuing to interact with this piece, demonstrating what minting artistic intent actually means over a lengthy period of time— it’s not trivial. What’s required of a collector is that they be a true patron. This piece is made for the enjoyment of everyone– but owning it will take someone special.”

HOW IT WORKS

  1. Artist, Matt Kane, created original layered painting by hand on custom software, he programmed himself. The software is built on Java and Processing frameworks – and has been in constant production since March, 2014.
  2. The original layered artwork is edited by the artist and made into multiple artwork states.
  3. All the layered state artworks are minted by the artist on Async Art platform.
  4. When minted, the layer files are stored on Interplanatary File Storage System for later retrieval.
  5. Files are loaded into the renderer from IPFS.
  6. The artist can change the color, brightness, or saturation of any artwork states. By minting an NFT for artist intent, the artwork remains a work in progress, influenced by the artist in addition to Bitcoin price volatility.
  7. Visual style changes are recorded onto the Ethereum blockchain.
  8. Style data stored on the Ethereum blockchain influences and saves new versions to be served on the renderer.
  9. Bitcoin is a scarce, valuable asset. There will only ever be 21 million, making it highly sought after.
  10. 24 hours of Bitcoin price action are fed into the artist’s algorithm, which coordinates each hour with a layer of the artwork.
  11. The artist’s algorithm determines rotation, scale, and position of each layer. One hour of price volatility = One layer’s attributes.
  12. A new abstract composion is dynamically generated when you visit bitcoin.volatility.art

ASYNC ART

Async Art is an NFT platform which allows artists to tokenize layered, programmable artworks. What sets them apart is that their smart contract treats artworks as a package of assets, rather than the single image traditionally found in NFT art.

“I’ve heard one or two collectors ask what happens if Async goes away as a platform. By building this website and alternative renderer, I wanted to prove that pieces minted on Async Art can be decentralized and are not reliant on a single platform. There is no point of failure to these artworks– they can thrive independent of platform. In the future, there will be more and more methods of viewing, interacting with, and enjoying these programmable artworks. All that’s needed is for tech to be built and for artists to keep dreaming aloud.”

The artwork on Async can be viewed here.

THE ARTIST

Matt Kane writes algorithms and layers their mathematical output to create complex, colorful manifestations of his creative visions. A gallery-represented oil painter before he taught himself to code, Kane innovates digital equivalencies to studio traditions in his practice. To learn more, visit his website.

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